


Of Monsters and Mai Tais

by JSevick



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jurassic Park - not really an au but sort of, dinosaur-related violence, established olicity, multi-chapter, not much more than what's in the trailer, spoilers for Jurassic World, until the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 14:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4708982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JSevick/pseuds/JSevick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver thought he had already survived the worst of island vacations—but Lian Yu didn’t have the love of his life and his best friend along for the danger. </p><p>And that’s not the only thing that’s a little bit different about Isla Nublar…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There is one commenter that might be excited for this… and possibly no one else. But this idea seemed like too much fun to pass up, and felt perfect for my first multi-chapter fic! 
> 
> You might think I’m some huge Jurassic Park fan, but I’m not, really. I only saw the original for the first time (since I was 5 and it gave me nightmares) two months ago--though I did enjoy it! This story is based on the newest film, meant to take place beside it, put together from memory and Google. 
> 
> So numerous science and plot and logic-related fails abound… but I hope you have fun with this! I definitely did. :)

Felicity holds Oliver’s hand the whole way there, tightly within both of her own, squeezing harder every time a tremor shakes the helicopter. She would probably be curled into his lap if she didn’t picture imminent death every time she touched the harness buckles. The entire thing is a death trap, she’s decided. It literally flies on blades—not wings. _Blades_.

“What was that?” Oliver asks her, his voice coming through the headset, and she realizes she was muttering something about blades.

Then the helicopter starts to descend, and she jerks back against the seat while pulling Oliver’s whole arm across her body like a shield. He directs their tangle of hands towards her knee so he can give it a squeeze, offering her a smug, amused smile that she wants to smack off his face—if she wasn’t sure that the only thing keeping her in the air was her grip on his forearm.

Sitting across from them, Diggle shakes his head with a smile.

“Felicity, _you_ wanted to go on this trip,” Oliver says gently.

“I want to _be_ there,” she says, her eyes scrunched shut. “When we get back, I’m inventing teleportation. Or maybe I can have Barry pick me up—ha, literally. Except last time he set me on fire…”

“He _what_?” Oliver has lost his smug smile.

The helicopter heaves slightly as it settles into gravity, and finally lands on the concrete with a loud shudder that she feels through her bones. But the ground outside the window is normal size again.

When the door opens to the roar of the slowing blades, Diggle insists on getting out first, and Felicity can breathe again in the fresh air… though it’s thick with heat and humidity. She can see the rising hills of the island beyond, green and lush, and the streaming crowds of people walking down the docks into the entrance of the park.

“Jurassic Park,” she breathes, as she steps out into the wind beneath the quieting chopper, her hand in Digg’s as he helps her down onto the landing pad. The hem of her jersey knit sundress blows wildly around her knees, and her sensible traveling flats make her tiny between the broad shoulders and intimidating frames of her boyfriend and his bodyguard, when they all stand to greet the docent rushing towards them.

“Mr. Queen, Ms. Smoak, welcome to Isla Nublar,” the man says, eager and jittery, turning to hiss at the staff behind him and direct them towards the baggage stored in the helicopter. “My name is Mark, and I will be happy to assist you in any way I can.”

“Thank you, Mark,” Oliver says, shaking his hand, and Mark’s eyes widen at Oliver’s rough hands and strong grip. Most of his arms are hidden beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his white shirt, but the surge of muscles stretching the cloth around his bicep does not go unnoticed.

If anything, Mark looks a little starry-eyed—Felicity recognizes the expression from her own zoned-out objectification of Oliver’s magnificent physique.

But Mark shakes his head, tousling the brown curls atop his narrow face, and turns dutifully towards her with his hand outstretched and polite working smile pasted back on. Her grip is far more demure, tiny hand sliding into his well-lotioned palm, but hopefully with enough strength to remind him that she is the CEO here.

“Yes, thank you for meeting us here,” she adds.

Mark spares Diggle a brief glance, clearly categorizing him as not requiring a personal greeting, which makes Felicity frown. But then, Digg has told her repeatedly that his job is to blend in and observe, that he doesn’t mind the way people look right past him, that he is here as a bodyguard and not their friend. She reminds him that he is both, always.

“Now, would you like me to guide you to the hotel—or would you like to see the park first? We recommend it to be seen in the daylight, but we have prepared a sunset tour for you, if you wish,” Mark says. The orange light of the setting sun spills over the glass and steel buildings facing the sea, the thoroughfare of the park lit by rows of streetlamps, beneath a darkening purple sky.

Oliver looks at Felicity, raising his eyebrows in question.

“Let’s go to the hotel,” she says. “I’d like to change before dinner.”

“Of course,” Mark says, bowing his head, and he turns to lead them down the walkway from the helipad, trailed by the luggage-wielding bellhops like a line of baby ducklings.

“That okay, Digg?” She turns to look at him, determined to make this his vacation, too. He had to leave Lyla and Sara at home, after all, so she’s going to make sure he enjoys himself.

“That’s just fine,” he replies. “It’ll give me a chance to check in with Lyla, and check the room’s security.”

“You really think someone’s going to come all the way to Jurassic Park to kill us?”

“I think if there’s anyone with murderous intent on this island, you two will find them.”

“You know, we’re usually doing that on purpose,” she says, but Digg just snorts and walks ahead down the walkway.

Felicity holds Oliver’s hand as they walk together, thumbs interlocked, grip loose and nonchalant now that she’s not in a death trap—and now that she can touch him, any time she wants. Beyond the breeze stirred by the chopper, the air is warm and fragrant, a touch soupy with omnipresent rain. Sounds of children shrieking excitedly, and mechanical rides churning with power, and tacky music feeding through invisible speakers rise from the main street of the park, but they turn towards the large glass façade of the main hotel off to the side.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asks him, bumping her forehead against his shoulder.

“Why do you ask?” he replies softly.

“You know… island. Isolated. Surrounded by water.”

“That is the general definition of an island,” he says wryly, smiling. “I’m fine, Felicity. This island has some distinct differences from Lian Yu.”

As if on cue, a roar sounds out in the darkening night, a rattling reptilian screech that sends a primal shiver up Felicity’s spine. Oliver’s hand tightens in a spasm around her own, and even Digg freezes up ahead. A flock of birds startles from the trees in response, twisting into the sky like an explosive plume of smoke.

She’s torn between an excited spark of awe…

…And a creeping tendril of dread.

XXXXX

The suite at the pinnacle of the hotel unfolds in front of them, a mash of cold contemporary lines and a vague tropical theme, with plants trailing down the walls over abstract art of palm leaves. It has multiple rooms, one for Diggle that he quickly disappears into for a phone call with Lyla, after peering around metallic door frames and behind avant-garde couches with angular cushions.

Oliver is instantly interested in the gigantic bed centered in the main bedroom, piled high with throw pillows beneath a delicate sheer canopy. But Felicity has drifted slowly, mesmerized, towards the giant arch of windows that makes up one wall, so he follows her there. Outside, only the edges of the sky retain any glimmer of purple light, while the rest has been flooded with a galaxy of stars not visible from the city… something that does remind him of the island, with a sudden pang he suppresses ruthlessly.

Yet it’s the movement in the distant dark that has caught her attention, and soon it has all of his. Because those slow moving forms, on a sloping lawn of grass, small only in perspective because those are full-size _trees_ they’re towering over… Those are…

Dinosaurs.

“Brachiosaurus,” Felicity says in an awed whisper beside him. The long, sloping necks rise from ponderous bodies edging along the trees surrounding the meadow. “Herbivorous—but look how _big_. They could crush you with one foot. I mean, not that they’d want to, I think they’re nice… Like, nice for dinosaurs, you know, maybe like elephants. Are elephants nice?”

“Some of them, I’m sure,” he says, never able to keep from smiling around her. He trails his fingertips between her bare shoulder blades, along the straps of her dress, just beneath the tip of her ponytail tickling across his knuckles. She squirms against his touch, nudging her hip against his upper thigh and slipping her arm around his waist. Anchoring him to his newfound happiness—who knew being happy could be so simple?

“It’s not that I’m so into dinosaurs.” She hasn’t taken her gaze from the window, even as the scene outside grows dimmer in the dark. “I was more into horses, when I was a kid. Although, I did go through a phase obsessing over the news about this place, you know… when it happened. Mostly because of the rumors that a young girl who could hack saved the day. But when they reopened this place, at first, of course I thought it was ridiculous.

“Yet how could I not still want to see this?” she asks, and now she looks up at him, eyes bright behind her glasses. “We are looking at the most important scientific achievement of mankind… The medical applications alone of their genetic sequencing and cloning capabilities—the answers to questions about our evolution, our planet, our existence…”

She leans her head against his shoulder, tucking herself more firmly against his side, as his arm wraps around her. “And it’s fun, taking a vacation like this. I never really got to go on many vacations when I was little, especially not something fancy and tropical like this. I want a Mai Tai, or something with a little umbrella.”

“We’ll just have to get you one, then,” he says as he presses a kiss into her hair.

“I’m going to go shower and get ready.” She pats his chest as she disentangles herself from his grasp, ponytail bouncing as she disappears into the bedroom.

Outside the window, the meadow beyond is almost completely lost in shadow, but what Oliver notices then are the tall double fences between the hotel yard and the park beyond. Lights blink atop thick concrete columns every few feet, electrified metal cables stretched taut between, a deep trench dug into the ground between the fences.

He, too, remembers the news stories from the Jurassic Park disaster just over twenty years ago, when he was a young, spoiled boy who demanded a dinosaur of his own. Remembers fraught conversations about InGen as a competitor, about QC’s own experiments being canceled. At the time, he only cared about seeing the T-Rex, jealous of the Hammond grandchildren, wanting an island adventure of his own…

Now, he thinks back to the details of those news broadcasts, the way that safety precautions had failed because of the storm and employee fallibility.

The way that, in an instant, fences weren’t enough.

The window now shows only the reflection of his own face, expression tense.

And then he hears the shower starting in the other room, and decides that he could use a dose of happiness before dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So foreshadowing. Much subtle. ;) 
> 
> This is a Jurassic Park fic guys--strap in for the ride!
> 
> Thanks for reading, and let me know if you want to see more. :D


	2. Chapter 2

The ballroom of the hotel fills with professional-looking people, in trim suits and cocktail dresses, mingling between the round tables and along the buffet. Waiters step sedately through them, trays of champagne flutes attacked by flocks of eager guests like a carcass in the raptor cage. These events are only bearable with booze.

Felicity abstains from the champagne in order to meander over to the open bar, where she gets her Mai Tai and sucks the pineapple and cherry off the tiny umbrella, twirling it in front of Oliver with a grin. The crystal chandeliers hanging from the curved ceiling, over eggshell-colored walls and dark carpet, make the room look like any other ballroom in any other hotel. Only the tropical flower arrangements standing as table centerpieces add color to the décor. She knows weddings take place here, but she’s pretty sure only when it’s raining—otherwise, they must take place outside in the warm island breeze with dinosaurs roaming in the background.

Diggle’s in his simple black suit, Oliver in light gray, while Felicity wore a dark green body-hugging dress that has Oliver’s eyes sparking every time he looks at her. Even though she’s the CEO of the newly rechristened Queen Incorporated, Oliver is still the more famous and popular, so that soon he is surrounded by executives and trophy wives.

“Since when did people’s traumatic experiences become okay for small talk?” Felicity mutters after gently extracting him from _another_ obliviously smiling question about his time on the island. Can’t these people see the way he tenses, the way his eyes darken, the way he instantly takes a sip from the glass in his hand as though fortifying himself? Sometimes, at events like this, she feels like his emotional bodyguard, taking conversational bullets so she can babble the fools away and smooth that crease between his eyebrows.

In fact, she’s taking care of both her boys, making sure Digg tries every single bit of food he’s eyeing enviously, even when he insists he’s not supposed to eat on the job. She piles up her own small plate with crispy dumplings and skewers of tender beef, and then shoves it into his hands and glares at him until he eats.

“I think those are the Verizon people,” Felicity says as she points out a clump of suits speaking with a sharply dressed woman near the front of the room. While the entire event is courting sponsors and investment partners, Verizon is clearly the biggest fish in the pond. “I wanted to talk to them about the free wifi initiative QI is sponsoring. I’ll be right back.”

Oliver snags her hand before she can walk away. “I’ll come with you.”

“No, really, it will be quick and technical and boring, I promise. Grab me one—no, three—of those cream puffs and find a quiet table in the corner.” She squeezes his hand, and still has to lean onto her tiptoes even in heels in order to bring her lips near his ear, so she can softly add, “I know these things tire you out. We’ll head back to the room soon.”

Pressing a kiss against his stubbled jaw, she pulls away only to have her lips snagged by his. He tastes like jalapeno poppers and beer, and she doesn’t even care if her red lipstick has smeared as she walks away grinning.

She manages to snag one Verizon woman on the edge of the circle, someone in promotional media who listens to her pitch with a courteous smile but clearly can’t do anything about it. The woman does promise to pass on Felicity’s card, ever mindful that QI is still the biggest name in Star City. But before Felicity can target another one, the Verizon people have dispersed from their circle to mingle with the room, and she is left standing alone beside a woman with a razor-sharp red bob and a couture black dress that hangs decorously past her knees.

“Hello,” Felicity says, a bit uncertainly.

“Hello,” the woman returns politely. “Claire Dearing, Operations Manager of the park.”

“Oh!” Felicity can’t help the excited smile as she shakes her hand. “Felicity Smoak, CEO of Queen Incorporated.”

“Ah, Ms. Smoak, it’s a pleasure to meet you. It is always nice to meet a fellow female professional. I must say, you are so… young.” Her gaze crawls up Felicity from strappy heels past mid-thigh hem to loosely pinned golden curls, and Felicity can see in her eyes the same expression she’s been getting since the IT girl became Executive Assistant, though far less hostile than the eyes in her own company.

“I have been very fortunate—and hard-working, of course. Lots of late nights. In the office, I mean, what else would I mean?” She trails off in a nervous giggle, and tells herself that the Mai Tai buzz isn’t worth the risk of coming off as exactly what people expect of her.

Claire maintains her composure, hands folded in front of her. “I know that the former Queen Consolidated has been beset by numerous challenges through the years, and a fair bit of unfortunate PR. I can certainly relate.”

“Oh, right, of course,” Felicity responds, able to find her focus. “Well, what you’ve done with this place is incredible. The recovery of public trust alone… Perhaps I should have a meeting with your PR team.”

“I am sure that can be arranged,” she says with a well-practiced smile. “And I am quite interested in your relationships with Palmer Technologies and S.T.A.R. Labs—three powerful scientific interests uniting could be a very profitable ally for the Masrani Corporation.”

“I think ‘relationship’ is a little strong, I mean, what even counts as a relationship these days? Not that there isn’t…” Felicity takes a breath and smiles. “I look forward to working with the Masrani Corporation in a way that profits us both.”

She turns to extricate herself, looking at Oliver across the room—who is staring back at her, resembling a forlorn puppy awaiting his master’s return. Claire follows her gaze.

“That’s right, you’re here with Oliver Queen, of course,” Claire says, her tone mildly appreciative. “He does know how to clean up well, doesn’t he? At least some men still do.”

She’s been distracted by a man entering the ballroom, chin lined with stubble to rival Oliver’s and wearing a rough leather vest over a wrinkled gray Henley. She rolls her eyes before turning back to Felicity.

“I’m sure there’s something I have to go deal with,” she says, then pauses, something genuine filling her eyes. “I apologize if I gave the wrong impression earlier—I really am thrilled to see more women in power. More of us can only make it easier, and if you haven’t discovered it yet, it is _not_ easy. Be too professional and career-focused, and you’re a cold bitch doomed to die alone. Be too emotional and family-focused, and you’re a weak, hormonal woman with a biological clock that makes promoting her a _risk_.” She expels a breath, shaking away the moment of sincerity to return to her business façade. “Good luck, Ms. Smoak, and I look forward to hearing from you. I hope you enjoy the park.”

“Um, thank you,” Felicity says, but Claire has already turned to stalk impatiently over to the man hovering at the end of the buffet table, as he swipes a brownie with one grease-stained hand.

Felicity crosses the ballroom back to Oliver’s side, thinking about the unconventional path her career has taken. Undoubtedly, without Oliver—without their _evening activities_ —she would still be in IT. And without Ray, without his admittedly impulsive and possibly inappropriate promotions, she would not be CEO.

She graduated from MIT near the top of her class—when had her career path been taken over by the whims of men?

When Oliver rises impatiently from the table, plate piled with cream puffs in hand, she can’t find it in herself to regret anything about what brought her to this moment, this man. But now that he’s firmly entrenched in her personal life, she’s determined to make her professional life entirely her own.

First, though, she’s going to enjoy the rest of this vacation to the fullest even if it kills her.

“Let’s go back to the room,” she murmurs in his ear, taking the cream puffs with them as they go, Digg guiltily munching on his own dessert plate as they ride the elevator up to the suite.

And then, kicking the throw pillows onto the floor, lit by moonlight through the windows where only dinosaurs serve as witness, she has her favorite dessert of all.

XXXXX

Being woken by the shrill roars of dinosaurs is a new experience for Oliver, something deep in the animal part of his brain startling him awake with a pounding heart even though he’s wrapped in luxurious sheets beneath a shimmering canopy. But in the soft light of dawn, and with the lazy heat of Felicity’s body curled beside his own, he can relax back into grogginess.

He slides his hand up her bare back, gratified by the shifting stretches of her muscles as she twists deeper into the pillows and mumbles sleepily. As she squirms against him, he presses whiskery kisses into the curve of her neck and shoulder, into the hair that smells like coconut. But when his hand slips around her hip, skimming up her stomach to graze his fingertips between her breasts, she finally turns to squint one bleary, make-up-smeared eye at him.

“What time is it?” she grumbles.

He looks over at the alarm clock. “8:17.”

“Then we can’t.” She swats his hand away from her chest, turning onto her stomach as though to thwart his advances, but it just presents a new target as his hand roams down her back. “Oliver, I want to be at the park entrance when it opens at nine.”

“And your point is?” He marks a trail of kisses down her spine.

“I need coffee, and a shower— _alone_ —and to pack a bag, and coffee, and to check my e-mail, and did I mention coffee?” She’s turned her head towards him, voice still scratchy with sleep, words blowing strands of the tousled blonde hair thrown over her face.

“Is that your way of asking me to get you some coffee?”

“No, this is: can you get me some coffee?” She shifts forward to kiss his shoulder, hand resting briefly over his heart, and then she’s sitting up in the tangle of sheets, all bare skin and ruffled hair and sleepy yawns. Still holding his heart in her hands.

“I think there’s a Starbucks downstairs in the lobby,” she adds. “Is that too much?”

“No, that’s fine.” He wakes up quickly, since the island scrubbed away the luxury of slow morning routines, and the only time he lingers in bed is when there’s someone lingering with him. “The usual?”

“I’m thinking something decadent—I’m on vacation.” Then she’s sauntering her gorgeous ass into the bathroom, and it takes a great deal of his hard-won discipline not to follow her.

Instead, he dresses in cargo pants and a dark gray t-shirt, and finds Diggle sitting out in the main room watching the news.

“Sleep well?” Diggle asks with a smirk, and Oliver wonders how soundproof the walls are. He’s lived enough of an exhibitionist life not to be embarrassed, but he knows Felicity would be. However, Digg’s not the type to enjoy voyeurism; most likely, he just knows them well enough to presume.

“Very,” Oliver says simply. “I’m going down to get coffee, you need anything?”

“Already had some. You want me to stay here with Felicity?”

Oliver only has to give a quick jerk of his chin, and then he’s striding towards the elevator. Bringing a bodyguard on vacation—where no “evening activities” were needed—had felt more than a little unnecessary, but he has to admit the idea of someone else watching over Felicity eases his deepest, ever-present fears. After everything he’s lost, he’s not sure that feeling will ever go away.

He’s just done letting it keep him from living.

By the time he returns to the room, Felicity’s showered and dressed, hair pulled back and glasses on, sitting with Digg on the couch. She reaches for the coffee with grabby hands and sweeps her fingertip through the whipped cream, sucking it off her finger innocently enough, but he still looks away.

“When you checked in with Lyla last night, everything was…?” Oliver asks Digg.

“Fine, Oliver. Star City has not fallen apart without you.”

“I know,” he says, trying to sound nonchalant but it comes out a little defensive. He did spend five months away with Felicity; he _knows_ they don’t need him. That doesn’t mean he can’t worry, does it?

“I’ve been Instagramming back and forth with Thea,” Felicity says. “They’re okay.” Her tone is understanding rather than teasing; they got so attuned to each other during their time away. He’s so glad that didn’t go away when they came back.  

The weather for the day is supposed to be beautiful, if hot. Felicity even eschews her usual dresses for the casual practicality of shorts with multiple pockets and a polka dot tank top. Both he and Digg assure her they’ll be fine in t-shirts and pants.

But she still tugs him into the bedroom and demands he wear sunscreen.

“Oliver, all your manliness is not going to protect you from melanoma,” she scolds, as he quirks one eyebrow at her. She grabs his face in her hands, pulls him down towards her and kisses him softly and slowly, then pulls away only an inch to add, “I plan on you being around for a long time.”

“If you insist,” he says, letting her nudge him onto the bed and sitting still for her ministrations.

As her hands smooth the lotion over his bare arms in massaging circles, he feels taken care of in a way he’d nearly forgotten. The closest thing is medical attention from his friends, but that is always tinged with worry and pain and guilt and secrets. This is pure love, and he closes his eyes as her gentle touch circles around his temples, across his cheekbones and forehead, working through the scratch of his stubble and around the back of his neck. Even over the tips of his ears.

“Now you,” he says, his voice so calm and low it surprises even him. What surprises him more is that it’s not desire but contentment, an intimacy deeper than sex.

“I can do my own,” she says with a shrug, but he takes the bottle from her hands.

His rough hands are slick with sunscreen as he rubs it into her skin, working up the sloping lines of her legs, teasing under the hem of her shorts but darting away before she playfully smacks them. Slowly peeling down the straps of her top to bare her shoulders, he runs his fingertips along her collarbone and around her shoulder blades, feeling the fragile strength of her skeleton beneath his hands. He tries to give her face the same reverent attention she gave his, her nose scrunching at the tickle of his calluses.

“You guys want to make the opening, or you want me to take a walk around the block?” Digg calls through the closed door, invoking one of their code phrases.

“We’re almost ready,” Felicity calls back, then blinks at Oliver as she pulls his hands away. “Thank you,” she whispers shyly, and he kisses her cheek, lips sliding in the greasy layer of lotion on her skin.

Freed from the spell of the moment, Felicity rises from the bed and grabs up her tiny backpack, stuffing the bottle of sunscreen into it along with her phone, a flashlight, a water bottle, her prescription sunglasses in their case, granola bars, a pack of playing cards, and a Swiss army knife. When she crams a compact first aid kit in there as well, Oliver laughs and shakes his head.

“You know we’re going to be with a docent the whole time, one who’ll probably rush off to get us anything we might need,” Oliver says, as Felicity hurls the nearly-bursting thing around her shoulders.

“I’ve gotten used to having money, or being around people who have money,” she says, slipping on a double pair of socks and sneakers, with Band-Aids in her bag for blisters. “And when it comes to private flights or hotel suites, I have to admit it’s pretty nice. But I’m not going to send a poor employee running across the park for an aspirin if I get a headache.”

She walks past him out into the main room, and he thinks about how wrong all those tabloids are when they suggest she’s a gold-digger or spoiled by the occasional Louboutins.

Not for the first time, he’s so glad she saw right through him—so he could get a chance to see her.

“Let’s go!” she calls eagerly from the doorway, and he and Digg follow her out into the hallway.

And then they leave the hotel behind… for the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I went on a bit of a tangent—but Jurassic World did have problems, and most of those had to do with Claire. I just wanted to give her the defense that her own writers didn’t, even if it was somewhat OOC. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seeing the park... finally. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had not seen that vacation photo when I wrote this with them in the exact same pose--but the confirmation of the height difference is DELICIOUS. :D

Mark leads them through the jostling of the crowd, Digg walking behind them, Oliver striding at Felicity’s side, her hand curled around his elbow. She can feel the tension in his arm, knows the hordes of strangers pressing in around them makes him a bit jumpy. So she stays close by him, grinning up at him every time he glances her way, earning a small lopsided smile of his own.

When the park is opened, they flow into the thoroughfare with the rest of the crowds, many of whom are running to get to the most popular attractions and beat the lines. Felicity realizes with a twinge of happy guilt that they’ll be able to cut to the front of the line; she’s always hated the people who could do that, but it won’t stop her from being one of them.

Once the crowds have spread throughout the park, leaving the main street merely crowded rather than overflowing, they take their time meandering down the path between overpriced restaurants and themed shops. Felicity makes a note to buy Sara a stuffed Triceratops on the way out, not wanting to carry it around all day. The air smells of fried foods and coffee stands and fresh-cut grass, and the sun beats down on them through the heavy air.

“Hey,” she says quietly, running her hand down Oliver’s side, feeling the muscles bunch beneath her fingers. “Do you want something for breakfast? You didn’t get to eat before we left the hotel.”

“I’m alright.”

She’s eyeing the café on the corner of the block, where a sign advertises extremely overpriced egg sandwiches. “Are you sure?” The sweet coffee sits in her stomach, lonely.

“Maybe a sandwich,” he says, able to read her as always. But before they can turn into the café, Mark has turned around, spinning on his heel.

“Please, Mr. Queen, Ms. Smoak, allow me. What can I get for you?”

They order two bacon and egg sandwiches (because when has she ever been kosher?), and one with sausage for Digg, and sit at a tiny round table outside the café while Mark cuts to the front of the line within. Felicity’s willing to let him go because she’d rather not face the jealous glares just yet.

“What do you want to see, Digg?” Felicity asks. “Do you have a favorite dinosaur?”

“Can’t say I’ve ever given it much thought,” he answers. “I think the T. Rex is the only one I know.”

“Typical man—thinking size is all that matters,” she scoffs, playfully, kicking her legs up onto Oliver’s lap. “And murder. And sharp pointy things. Even though the Velociraptor is far more vicious and frightening.”

“Is that your favorite?” Digg asks.

“No, because I don’t like anything that wants to eat me,” she says flippantly, and Oliver’s face twitches, while Digg just looks away making his “why me?” face. She continues on, ignoring them. “My favorite is the Triceratops. Maybe because of the character in _The Land Before Time_. Or maybe because it’s kind of like a horse. Sort of.”

She’s saved from attempting to clarify her rambles—that’s always where it starts, just trying to fix or explain what she’s already said—by a woman approaching their table. Digg straightens in his chair, Oliver’s knees jump slightly with tension beneath her outstretched legs, but the middle-aged woman is smiling apologetically and wringing her hands in front of her waist.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt, it’s just… are you Oliver Queen?” she asks.

“Yes, I am,” Oliver replies, slightly unsure, and the woman’s grin turns radiant.

“Oh, again, I’m sorry to bother you—but my family and I are from Star City, and we would love a picture, if that’s okay?” She gestures for a man and two teenagers to approach from across the street, the daughter turning bright red and the son looking embarrassed.

Oliver looks at Felicity, who nods encouragingly. Everything they do to improve his public profile helps QI, whether he’s the CEO or just dating her; he will always be linked to the company. And she loves to see people treating Oliver like the hero he is, even if it’s not for the reasons she knows.

She slides her legs off of his and jumps up. “I’ll take the picture for you,” she offers, and the woman hands over her camera, starting to explain how it works. “Thanks, I think I’ve got it.”

Oliver stands awkwardly between the woman and her daughter, who looks about to faint while her father holds her up on her other side, casting suspicious glances at Oliver. The mother, holding the bored-looking son with one arm, and squeezing Oliver’s waist with the other, is grinning from ear to ear. Felicity can see the moment Oliver adopts his patented “Ollie Queen/CEO” persona, his smile practiced and not reaching his eyes.

After a few shots, Felicity hands back the camera. “Be sure to tag Queen Incorporated when you post this,” she says with a smile, and the woman gives her a second look. But Felicity knows her simple outfit, high ponytail, and black frame glasses are too plain to match her to the well-dressed CEO in the society pages, or the glitzy arm candy when she and Oliver go to bars with Thea or sit courtside at a Thunder game. She’s probably written off as an assistant, but she doesn’t mind.

As the family walks away, Felicity sits back down beside Oliver, who looks mostly bewildered by the interaction.

“You alright, man?” Digg asks. “Mom get a little handsy?”

“Just not used to people wanting to be seen with me,” he says.

“The people of our city have been through so much they don’t know up from down,” Digg says plainly. “But the Queen family is an establishment, in spite of everything. You saw your mom’s mayoral candidacy—people always come back to what they know.”

“Doesn’t hurt that you’re gorgeous,” Felicity says, earning looks from both of them. “What? You think that mother and daughter bonded over their interest in QI’s stock options?”

Mark returns then with their sandwiches, and they’re off again into the park.

Felicity takes a picture in front of the baby Triceratops to Instagram for Thea. But staring out at the little kids riding them, she has a sudden pang of… something. She imagines a little fair-haired girl, clinging to the saddle behind the Triceratops’ horns, waving at her daddy who’s watching anxiously from beyond the railing while her mommy takes too many pictures. Neither of them is ready for that… but she can see it. And she holds Oliver’s hand a little tighter as they walk.

In the Samsung Innovation Center, she peppers Mark with questions about the processing power of the computers doing the genome sequencing, which even the technicians standing in front of the computers themselves don’t know. But they’re let into the room to watch an egg hatch, slimy claws cracking through an egg the size of her head, as a tiny wrinkled thing like a featherless bird cries out from inside.

They opt not to take seats in the splash zone during the Mosasaurus demonstration. “What is this thing again?” Digg keeps asking, as they stand at the railing overlooking the stands. The shark wheeled out on a crank over the water is enough to make his hands tighten around the metal bar.

Then a gigantic monster surges up through the water, opening jaws that could swallow a tank and ripping the Great White off of its rope. Digg’s eyes are wide, his knuckles pale; Oliver’s grip on her waist is so tight it’s pinching into her muscles; Felicity just stares, her jaw hanging open. The crowd is gasping and screaming and clapping as the Mosasaurus tips on its side to fall back into the water, sending out a tsunami over the poncho-wearing spectators. As the entirety of the stands sink below, the boys try to collect themselves. But the Mosasaurus swimming past to finish its bloody meal has them overwhelmed again.

“I already detested swimming,” Oliver mumbles. “I’m never getting in the water again.”

“I highly doubt one of those is going to be in the pool at the gym,” she says, though she’s imagining one of those in the depths of the ocean, and remembering suddenly that Oliver spent days on a raft out at sea. So she keeps that thought to herself, for once.

“We’re alive because things like that went extinct,” Diggle says, shaking his head. “It’s not right.”

Next, they head to the Tyrannosaurus Rex exhibit, standing in a fake hollowed-out log peering through panes of glass that really don’t look thick enough. The inside is crowded enough that even with the path cleared by Mark, Felicity has to stand in front of Oliver so they can both look out, Digg beside him. His arms wrap around her shoulders, and she runs her hand along his forearms and settles with gripping them tightly like a really warm, muscular shawl. It’s the safest place she knows.

The goat lifted onto the concrete platform, chained by its neck, is not so lucky.

“Oh, that’s not fair, they don’t even give it a chance,” she says, feeling her heart start to pound loudly in her ears as it just sits there. “Okay, so I know it wouldn’t have a chance against a T. Rex, but maybe it can run, right? Maybe that’s its evolutionary advantage, running and hiding?”

“They have to feed the T. Rex something, Felicity,” Oliver says gently in her ear.

She’s pushing back against his solid chest, which doesn’t even budge in response, trying to burrow deeper into him. “I don’t like this… I don’t know if I can watch this.”

The floor begins to tremble beneath them, the leaves in the distance quivering with the approach of something… huge, and the crowd goes silent with anticipation. But Felicity can only feel her heart racing, her stomach twisting. She’s not a vegetarian or anything—if anything, her Big Belly Burger habits may be responsible for the deaths of several cows—but not like this. Not with them bleating helplessly and straining against their chain and waiting for a death approaching with beady eyes and a gaping jaw of bloodstained teeth. (Maybe it’s worse, but she doesn’t have to watch it.)

Even the glass shakes with an unsettling shiver—and the thing moving through the trees takes terrifying shape, large head balanced over a scaly, thundering body on sloping, pointed toes, striking the ground with steps that fire every instinct towards flight within her. Oliver’s thumb is stroking softly across her collarbone, but she knows she can’t watch.

When it roars and pounces towards the goat, startling the crowd into a cheer, Felicity shrieks and twists her head to the side, burying her nose in Oliver’s bicep and squeezing her eyes shut. She keeps them shut through the abruptly cut off squeals of the goat, the cracking and snarling sounds audible even over the awed gasps and shouts of bloodthirsty glee. Oliver presses a kiss into her hair atop her head, and is saying something to Digg, but she’s focused on the retreating tremors of the beast’s steps, counting the seconds between the thunder and the lightning so she can open her eyes.

“It’s okay, it’s over,” Oliver whispers right into her ear, warm breath sending far more pleasant tingles down her spine, and she lifts her head.

The puddles of blood and torn scraps of flesh around the mangled chain leave her nauseous, but she looks away quickly and turns towards the exit with everyone else. They’re all eager for the next fix, the next ancient horror to witness, while she strides forward on shaky legs and savors Oliver’s strong hand on the small of her back.

“I’m ready for herbivores,” she tells Mark, still feeling like the blood has drained from her face. “Lots of herbivores. Gentle giants. I happen to like those.”

“Well, we’ve prepared a private ride through our grazing fields—most visitors access them through the gyrosphere, but as our VIP guests, you can experience the trip back in time on one of our access roads,” Mark says, leading them towards an armored jeep idling beside the road in question.

“Is it safe?” Oliver asks.

“Oh, absolutely—as Ms. Smoak requested, all herbivores, and we’ll stay out of the way of the larger ones.” His smile is nearly sycophantic, as he bows over his hands, eager to make them happy enough to invest. “They won’t even notice us at all.”

“Good,” Felicity says, still a bit weakly, but they all climb into the jeep with freshly procured cold water and deli sandwiches, and soon her nausea has passed.

Because while she’s still interested in noticing dinosaurs, she’s decided she doesn’t want them to notice her.

She knows from personal experience—nothing good comes from attracting the attention of a monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter of "build-up"--next chapter gets real, y'all. :)
> 
> And I've decided to update this story every Tuesday--so check in next week (and get ready...) 
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The nightmare begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I was going to update on Tuesdays--PSYCH! :) I decided Saturdays would be better, because who couldn't use a little dinosaur-related mayhem on their weekends, eh?
> 
> And the mayhem finally begins, folks.

For a long, winding stretch of road, it’s just jungle around them, oversized leaves that brush past the windows and curving dirt tracks that swoop around stubborn trees with roots like tentacles. Within the rumbling jeep, Oliver has to remind himself that he is not a prisoner, that at any moment he could ask them to turn around and take him back to a helicopter that will leave this island instantly. No camps to infiltrate, no explosives to disarm, no death toll to pay.

And he’s not alone, or with people he’s lying to, or who he has to feel guilty for loving. The woman who has barely let go of his hand all day—not for her but for _him_ , when he doesn’t even need to ask—and the man sitting behind him who always has his back, again without question… He’d lived in a world of lies his entire life—some he didn’t know he was swimming in, on the precipice of drowning, and some he built for himself to run away with… Somehow, these two people found him in that cage and created a haven of truth so he could breathe, when he’d never known fresh air before. He kept trying to die for them, when all they wanted was for him to live, and they were patient with him when they realized he didn’t know how.

When people call him privileged, they’re right. But he wasn’t truly privileged until he met them.

Felicity fidgets with excitement beside him, as the road ahead floods with sunlight through thinning trees. Some of her spark had dimmed in the T. Rex exhibit; he loves her for her compassion, her endless heart, the precious optimism that he wants to cradle in his hands and keep safe from the world. So he’s happy to see the color back in her cheeks, the smile on her face as she leans towards the window, leaving her hand behind to curl within his own.

The jeep rolls off the dirt track onto the flattened grass along the edge of a great valley, stretching in gently sloping hills into the distance, though it isn’t the geography that captures their rapt attention. As the jeep pulls to a stop, not far from the tree line, Mark encourages them to get out of the car, assuring them it’s perfectly safe.

Felicity is already out of the car, walking forward up the hill with slow, entranced steps, and pulling her phone from her pocket to start taking pictures. He and Digg are just behind her, jogging forward to catch up, because there’s nothing but grass and air between her and… dinosaurs.

A valley full of them, running and grazing and _living_. Packs of dinosaurs gallop by on two legs like ostriches, others lumbering about on four legs with long necks bent forward to skim the ground, towering over the earth like skyscrapers come to life. Some have ridges of spikes along their spines, and he knows enough to identify the fully grown Triceratops locking its horns in some sort of play with another. The air overflows with the sounds of their shrieks and bellows and snarls, and the stench of animal filth and fruit blossoms and the ocean air beyond.

Felicity mumbles out the names of various species, pointing her phone in different directions, while Digg just takes everything in, wide-eyed. Oliver notices the glass spheres darting among the flocks, dodging the ground-shaking steps of the largest dinosaurs who seem oblivious to these strange round creatures.

He looks back towards the jeep, now some distance away, seeing Mark listening to the radio. For a moment, he’s frowning, but then he clips the radio to his belt with a jerking motion and hurries over to them, obsequious smile returned to his face.

“Digg, can you take our picture?” Felicity asks, handing over her phone and dragging Oliver forward by his wrist, pulling them halfway down the hill towards the valley.

“Careful,” he says, all too aware of the giant _monsters_ who could wander over by them at any time, but she’s grinning brightly with her ponytail whipping around her face in the wind and he’s powerless to do anything but satisfy her every whim.

He pulls her in beneath his arm, feeling one of her hands clench around a handful of the back of his t-shirt, her other arm thrown out wide as though to claim the entire valley behind her. The smile he feels stretching his own face isn’t practiced, but full of an easy delight that Felicity fills him with in every breath.

“You want a picture, Digg?” she asks the man who still seems a bit shell-shocked, as she takes back the phone. “I can’t seem to get a steady signal here, but when we get back to the hotel we can send it to Lyla and Sara.”

“No, no, I’m good here,” he says, staying atop the hill.

“If you’d like to step this way a bit, you can see the watering hole,” Mark says. Felicity bounces after him around the jutting line of trees at the base of the hill, Oliver helpless to follow, signaling to Digg that he can stay there. A bodyguard wouldn’t be much use against stampeding dinosaurs, anyway, but he chooses not to say that out loud, for both of their sakes.

The blue pool of water is bordered by dinosaurs along the shallow edge, dipping their scaled heads forward to drink. There’s something so simple and _real_ about the scene, the tongues darting out to lap at the water, the talon-lined feet sinking into the mud, the heaving leathery sides expanding with their breathing…

These things are _alive_. He thinks of taking the pheasant’s head in his hand, the rapid heartbeat beneath the feathers as he cradled its rib cage in his grasp, the snapping crunch of bone as he twisted its neck—so much more fragile and quick and _easy_ than he’d expected, as though it had been hovering on the edge of death its entire life. He thinks of living because it died, because others died.

And he wonders what has to die so these dangerous, magnificent, unnatural things can live.

Some noise in the distance awakens something primal beneath his skin, but it’s so faint that when he turns his head to look he sees nothing to put with that itching feeling.

“Oh, Oliver, look—babies!” Felicity says in a reverent whisper, all of them tucked against the trees and thus out of the beasts’ notice, but cautious just the same.

He can spot a gaggle of smaller creatures fluttering around the mindlessly sweeping tails along the water’s edge, raising shrill cries as they scatter. They’re probably the size of large dogs, but next to the presumed parents, they are undoubtedly babies.

“We recently released a new group of hatchlings,” Mark says, pride in his voice. The radio crackles at his side, but he’s turned the volume all the way down. “They are all female, of course, so they cannot breed naturally—but as soon as we can, we like to bring the young out into the wild to acclimate.”

Oliver wonders if this highly controlled environment is considered “the wild,” not after what he’s seen…

But then he realizes all of the gyrospheres are gone.

“Hey, what-” he starts, but he’s cut off by a loud roar rising from the trees on the other side of the valley, a rending screech that quivers through his belly.

Felicity turns towards the sound, eyes gaping behind her glasses, and Mark’s smile is more forced than ever as he says, calmly, “Perhaps we should return to the car. I can show you another part of the park—the Aviary is next, I believe.”

As Mark turns back to walk up the hill, his pace is efficient but unhurried, and Oliver reaches out to snag Felicity’s hand and pull her up beside him as they follow.

They are not yet at the top of the hill, still a football field from the jeep, when the monster bursts from the trees into the valley, and chaos shudders through the air like a storm.

All throughout the valley, the herds begin to bellow and bleat, trampling over each other in their haste to get away from the newcomer—hurtling forward on two legs, tail lashing behind, slashing claws hanging at its side beneath a wide, distended jaw of grisly teeth. Paler scales and spiky frills distinguish it from the T. Rex, but in the shockwave of fear that jolts through him, the difference doesn’t matter.

This thing is death.

Felicity releases a startled shriek, stumbling into Oliver’s side as he starts yanking her forward into a run. Mark has frozen, staring at the creature that is running at full speed over the open lawn, until Oliver shoves him with his free hand.

Their three tiny figures scrambling across the grass must be a pittance compared to the huge, unwieldy forms stampeding in the other direction, but out of malevolence or fate or confusion, the monster is running across the valley right for them. Oliver sprints towards the jeep, half-dragging Felicity as she keeps up the best she can, wondering if he should take the time to stop and pick her up. Mark has fallen behind, his suit jacket flapping wildly around him and the shirt beneath soaked with sweat.

Digg is waiting by the car, shouting something—or maybe just yelling nonsense because that’s all that makes sense in this waking nightmare—with the doors hanging open.

The ground shakes beneath their feet with a quickening rhythm, and Oliver hears Felicity nearly sobbing between her heavy, gasping breaths as she races, hampered by shorter legs. None of them look back, focusing only on the jeep, not wanting to see death itself approaching even as it roars over them in anticipation.

When they near the jeep, Oliver uses his strength to throw her towards Digg, her petite form light enough to use the momentum to toss her over the last few feet. Digg catches her against his broad chest, turning instantly to shove her into the backseat. The fool waits for Oliver to reach the car before they both dive into the seat, piling on one another as Digg reaches back to shut the door. Mark has reached the driver’s side door, jumping in and twisting to close the door as the jeep is engulfed in the shadow of the beast’s form leaping towards it.

Felicity is shaking and wheezing beneath Oliver, glasses askew across her tear-stained cheekbones, her body half on the seat and half sprawled over the car floor. He has her gathered in his arms, Digg crouched over them both, Mark fighting for breath while bent over the console and making sure the doors are locked.

Oliver is surprised he can hear anything over the pounding of his own heart, every nerve ending beneath his skin tingling with adrenaline, his muscles leaping and throbbing around his weary bones—but it isn’t over.

The beast roars, the sound so loud over the roof of the jeep like the epicenter of an explosion, and its jaw closes down on the hood of the car, scraping off paint with a metallic screech. Felicity screams again, Digg shouting as he jerks helplessly against the back of the seat, nowhere to run.

“B-b-bulletproof glass,” Mark gasps out.

“Does that look like a fucking _bullet_ to you?” Digg yells.

“Start the car!” Oliver doesn’t know if they can outrun this thing, but sitting here like a to-go meal waiting to die is _not_ an option.

“What is it?” Felicity is whimpering against his neck, both hands wrapped so tightly in the front of his t-shirt that the neckline digs into the back of his head. “I-I don’t know what that is…”

Before Oliver can reiterate his command to start the car, maybe reverse back into the tree line, the thing has grabbed the front of the car in its claws and is jerking it back and forth, snarling with frustration. The entire jeep shakes and groans under its assault, smacking them against the car doors.

Then, in a whirl of shifting gravity and cracking glass, the jeep is tipped onto its side. Already on his side, Oliver just has to land on his feet against the car door, Digg bracing himself beside him, Felicity held so tightly in his arms that her feet now dangle against his shins. Mark still clings to the console, but the beast is attacking the weakened glass of the windshield and ripping it away with glistening talons.

Oliver twists to hurl Felicity over the back of this row of seats into the one beyond, urging Digg to climb around and towards the storage space. They’re all silent and breathless in the focus of the moment, military training settling into him and Digg, though Oliver can see the trembling weight of shock settling over Felicity as she presses herself into the former floor of the backseat.

“Come on!” Oliver reaches for Mark to haul him back with them, as the creature starts to peel back the windshield and its hot, fetid breath wafts through the car.

“I’m sorry,” Mark whispers the words repeatedly, over and over, face white and shiny with sweat. “Thought it was just… an error… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” He’s frozen, unmoving, and Oliver is just wrapping a hand around his collar when the monster shrieks in triumph and sinks its teeth into Mark’s leg through the shattered windshield.

“Oliver!” Digg grabs the back of his t-shirt and is dragging him back towards the space beside, formerly above, the heads of the seats.

As Mark is ripped out of his grasp, screaming with hands outstretched, reminding him suddenly and painfully of Sara, Oliver lets himself follow Digg’s harsh commands and crawls back to stand over Felicity. Mark’s squeals of terror and pain are over with an abrupt crunch, and the wet sucking sounds that follow might be the worst thing Oliver has ever heard. He presses Felicity’s face into his chest, feeling the corners of her glasses dig into his shirt, his body shielding hers beside the upturned edge of the backseat.

They’re all hidden from sight by the seats between them and the windshield, but any illusion of safety is false hope.

“I love you,” Oliver whispers, pressing his lips right against the shell of Felicity’s ear. “So much.” He wants to tell her that everything will be alright, that he can protect her, that she is safe with him like he always says… but nothing he’s learned has prepared him for this. He thinks of running out to draw the monster off, but he wouldn’t get two feet.

And if he’s going to die, he wants to be in Felicity’s arms. Just as he wants her cradled within his, happy and old and painless...  

Her tears soak through his t-shirt as her entire body trembles violently against him, but he can hear her returned whispers, like a litany of prayer to hold off the dark—“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

All sound outside has fallen silent, other than the ragged breaths of the creature, and Oliver waits for its renewed assault on the car. He can hear Digg slowly drawing out his pistol and turning off the safety, perhaps determined to take an eye with him when he goes.

The head lowers, its sniffing breaths echoing through the interior of the car, all of them frozen in wait. Oliver can smell his own sweat, and sunscreen smeared from his skin, and oil dripping from the pierced engine block. But whatever the creature smells and sees within, it pulls away suddenly, as a herd of something large thunders past, bellowing in confused fear. The monster roars with gluttonous hunger or triumph or simple bloodlust, and its footsteps racing away are a blissful melody to all of them.

Felicity sags against him with a sob, her knees failing, and Oliver can’t help curling into a crouch himself, taking her with him. Digg is muttering, “Fucking dinosaurs, man,” with his gun still in hand, pressed between his palms and against his forehead like a rosary.

For a long moment, they just breathe.

Mostly because they still can.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath... and the continuation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will I ever update when I say I will? Probably not--but at least it's sooner, right? 
> 
> This is a gift for reaching 200 followers on Tumblr (come join me, guys! For more of... whatever this is). :) 
> 
> At this point, I will also be posting the next chapter on Saturday, because I am a glutton like that, and to theoretically keep a schedule that I will inevitably fail at. Let me know if that would be too much--and feel free to read whenever you get the chance, or never. :)

Felicity has been in more than her share of life-threatening situations. More than several people’s shares, actually. Part of this comes from living in the former Starling City, the “deadliest city in America”—somehow rising higher (or sinking lower, depending on how you look at it) than Gotham over the course of several terrorist attacks.

But she’s racked up many more personal situations since then. Hacking the FBI database at the end of a crossbow… held at gunpoint in a casino… waiting for the Foundry to collapse around her head… needles full of Vertigo hovering over her neck…

_Okay, this isn’t helping_ , she tells herself, because the laundry list of violent encounters only reinforces how much she needed this _goddamned_ vacation.

“But I had to pick dinosaur island,” she mutters to herself, mostly just to test her voice. It’s still a bit creaky with the tightness in her throat. “This was _not_ in the brochure.”

“Hey,” Oliver says, doing that soft voice and head-tilting thing as his hand slides around her neck. “You okay?”

“About as much as can be expected,” she says, and he nods, looking unconvinced, but climbs over the seat to help Digg try and shove open the broken back door of the jeep. None of them want to climb out the front past Mark’s… remains.

Yes, Felicity has faced a lot of danger and death before, enough that she should be used to it—but it was all _human_. Irrational, insane, evil humans, most of the time, but _human_. Intelligent. Purposeful. Perhaps even able to be reasoned with, or at least punched and arrowed and escaped.

But _this_ …

She never wants to feel anything like that utter helplessness again.

“Should we just stay here? Wait for someone to find us?” Digg asks even as he shoves his shoulder into the bent metal frame of the car.

“We don’t know what’s going on out there,” Oliver replies. He’s remained calm, somehow, and Felicity feels weak and childish crying around that stoic, capable resolve—even while she clings to it. “We can’t wait here just waiting to be found by whatever else is on this island. And we don’t know they’ll even search for us before evacuating.”

“Evacuating?” Felicity echoes. “They wouldn’t just… leave us here…”

“Last time they abandoned the island to the dinosaurs for twelve years,” Oliver says, not looking at her. He doesn’t have to add about the other “last time” he was lost on an island.

“Yeah, well, they should’ve left it that way,” Digg says, and with a grunt, he pops open the back door of the jeep.

“Most of the carnivores are locked up separately, right?” Oliver asks.

“I think so, but Oliver…” Felicity takes his hand to climb out of the car, but being out in the open air—her head automatically swivels in every direction, ears straining to hear, but she only hears bugs chittering and the flapping wings of birds diving through the trees. “I don’t know what that was. I mean, I’m not a dinosaur expert—I bet Barry liked dinosaurs as a kid, maybe he could… He could even run here, I think-”

“Felicity,” Oliver says softly. She knows he’s watching her carefully for signs of shock, which is admittedly difficult to do when she’s already prone to rambling in sentence fragments.

“I looked into every dinosaur they’ve recreated on the island,” she says. “And that is not one of them. I don’t think that’s even a dinosaur that existed—unless it’s a very minor species, but with that size and capability, if it existed it would probably be a well-known one. And it’s not.”

“You’re saying something new grew on this island?” Digg asks. He’s managed to keep it together, his military history preparing him to take things in stride, but he looks like he’s at the edge of his sanity.

“I’m saying either we don’t know everything that’s going on in this place—or no one does.”

“Okay.” Oliver releases a breath, and leadership settles over him like a cloak. “We need to head back to the main park. First, let’s see what we’ve got. Any injuries? What are our supplies?”

The muscles in Felicity’s legs are quivering jelly after sprinting faster than she ever has, but other than a few possible bruises from being thrown into the car, she’s fine. Her glasses are a little wobbly on her face, the ears bent, but the lenses are miraculously undamaged. Digg has a small cut on his arm from some shattered glass, and Oliver’s knee is clearly hurting him, but somehow, they’re all okay.

Her phone, however, is not. Whether from the tossing or the landing or the squeezing herself into the backseat, the screen has cracked, and it won’t turn on. Of all the things that have happened—Mark is _dead_ , she reminds herself and then quickly un-reminds herself—it’s nothing, but it still brings on a wave of fresh tears. She turns away from the boys before they see it, kneeling down to open the backpack still clinging to her shoulders.

The water bottle has broken open and soaked the inside, and the lens of the flashlight is broken though it still works—but her prescription sunglasses are still alive inside their hard case, and it’s a small meaningless victory that somehow means a lot to her. They’ve got a first aid kit and a Swiss army knife, as well as sunscreen, granola bars, and playing cards. No water, though, unless they want to suck it from the lining of the bag.

Bandaging Digg’s cut with a Band-Aid, even as he scowls and tells her not to worry about it, feels like something she can do to fix all of this. When he sees her expression, he quiets down and lets her, while Oliver goes back into the jeep to scavenge whatever he can find.

“I should never have brought us here,” Felicity says, quietly so Oliver won’t hear her, running her thumb across the Band-Aid on Digg’s arm. She feels hot tears slipping down her cheeks, and hates that she’s still crying. Shouldn’t she be stronger than this by now?

“Felicity, this is not your fault,” Digg says, and his hand squeezes her shoulder. “Oliver and I are grown men, we go where we want. And of course you didn’t think this-”

“I should have, though, shouldn’t I? Shouldn’t this brain be good for something?”

“ _Hey_. You’ve saved more lives with that brain than I ever will with my guns and muscles.” He brushes away the tears that drip from her chin. “Now, I don’t know who’s responsible for this, but I know it’s not _you_.”

She sniffs and nods, not quite at Oliver’s level for self-blame (in fact, she expects him to start in at any minute), and finishes wiping off her face as Oliver crawls back out of the jeep.

“Are either of your phones working?” she asks.

“No signal,” Oliver says, while Digg adds with a gesture at his pocket, “Mine broke in the crash.”   

“Okay,” she says. “Then I guess we have to go, don’t we?”

Oliver steps up in front of her until all she sees is him, cradling her face in his hands with his thumbs stroking over her cheeks. “I’m getting you home safe,” he says, voice low. Then he kisses her, soft and warm, and she can taste the salt of sweat across his upper lip. In this moment, held in his arms, she believes him.

He shares a look with Digg as she pulls away, and she wonders just how bad she looks.

And so they set off walking down the dirt road. Oliver’s limping slightly, and Digg keeps one hand on the holster of his gun, and Felicity is holding their one living phone and trying to get a signal, composing efficient calls for help in case the signal is limited. Oliver managed to find one water bottle in the car, that they share with small sips, and it starts to wash the tears from her throat.

If she just doesn’t think about what happened, and focuses on getting back to the main park, then for a few moments this is just a hike. She flashes back to the trip with Oliver, when they would hike up mountains to look out over crystal blue lakes, and lie for hours on blankets beneath the shade, and walk along cold beaches, leaving winding, circular trails of footprints in the dark sand, as she ran away from the freezing water he kicked at her while shrieking with laughter. That was what a vacation was supposed to be, and she just wanted to recapture a sliver of that.

So she closes her eyes, feeling the thick, hot breeze, and the dappled sunlight piercing through the tropical leaves, and smelling flowers in the air. Her boys are on high alert, walking on either side of her, glances darting around to detect even a hint of movement amidst the trees. She focuses on one foot in front of the other, and the corner of the screen that still shows no bars, and mostly, for once, just tries not to think.

Not long into the walk, she remembers that she hasn’t had a bathroom break since this morning, which now feels like a lifetime ago—and while she managed to hold onto her bladder during the attack, she might not manage much longer. Both boys have relieved themselves off the side of the road because they can do that, but for her it’s a little more complicated. She’d wait, but the road stretches out ahead, no end or civilization in sight.

“Oliver, you are not watching me pee.”

He huffs out a breath, as though holding back the urge to sling her over his shoulder like a caveman. Those urges always seem to be close to the surface with him—and most of the time, even her evolved feminist sensibilities waver with a flush of heat in the face of them—but stuff like this always cracks the façade holding them back. And a distinct part of her wants nothing more than to curl up against his chest and let him scare away the monsters.

But that part is not strong enough to fight the part of her that is not letting her boyfriend (her stupidly hot boyfriend) see her squatting in the dirt.

“I’m just going to walk a few trees in—close enough to easily yell, far enough to disguise any, you know, noises, not that I’m—I’m just peeing, which you did _not_ need to know, but I-” She sighs. “Okay, I’m going.”

“Felicity,” Oliver says, frowning.

“It’s okay,” she says calmly. “The thing about dinosaurs is they tend to be big—I think we’ll hear it coming.” She’ll feel the tremors of those footsteps in her nightmares.

Stepping off the false security of the dirt road and into the thick greenery brushing past her bare ankles takes a breath of courage she wishes she didn’t need, but soon she’s found a thick tree about twenty feet from the boys. Balancing herself in an awkward squat, she has the sudden and ill-timed thought about security cameras throughout the park, but she’ll just have to hack their systems later. In fact, the more she thinks about it, someone here is getting visited by the Green Arrow over this bullshit.

A broad flat leaf nearby serves as the strangest toilet paper she’s ever used, and she can only hope it isn’t some ancient Eldritch abomination of poison ivy. As she kicks dirt over the spot, zipping up her shorts, she starts wondering about the paleobotany of the park—she’d always skipped those sections in the museum, but it might actually be really interesting, and the medicinal properties… Maybe there’s even magic herbs like those of Lian Yu…

She turns to head back to Oliver, relieved to have a new topic of conversation to babble about while they walk back, when she spots the thing staring at her out of the bushes.

It’s small, about three feet tall, with a reptilian face topped by two semi-circular bone crests. Crouched within a leafy shrub that it matches almost completely, it watches her with beady eyes while she stands frozen in silence.

_Dilophosaurus_ , she thinks but doesn’t say, afraid to make a sound in case one of several things happens. Summoning Oliver would be a comfort but might spur this thing to… Her mind races for more information on this species, and she instinctively takes half a step back towards the tree.

Then it’s hissing, a colorful frill snapping up around its head like a paper fan, some black liquid shooting out of its mouth to spill across her kneecap.

Whether it’s the gasping yelp she can’t help releasing, or Oliver’s sudden shout of her name and his thrashing footsteps through the brush, the tiny dinosaur lunges forward with a cry and sinks its fangs into her shin while she falls back against the tree trunk.

All she can think in that moment is that she’s finally remembered the Dilophosaurus is carnivorous, but almost exclusively rats and fish, and she’s not _that_ tiny, _dammit._

Oliver reaches her just as the creature has pulled back from her leg, perhaps preparing to strike again, and he stomp-kicks it away with enough force to crush its skull. His face is fierce, an avenging angel, and she can tell he’s not satisfied with such quick vengeance.

“Oliver,” she says, and it comes out a bit shakier than she intended. But at least whoever up there has it out for her had the decency to let her pull up her shorts first.

He turns on her, hands automatically coming up around her shoulder and cheek, eyes searching hers desperately. One look down at her leg has his jaw tensing further.

“There might be more,” she whispers, because she can’t remember if they hunted in packs, and he’s lifting her into his arms without a word.

“What happened?” Digg is asking when they return to the road, his gun out of its holster, pointed back into the bushes. He’s got her backpack slung over one shoulder, picked up from where she left it on the ground.

“Dilophosaurus,” she answers. Her leg is starting to sting, the skin heated and flushed, and she would give anything for working wifi so she could google this.

“It bit her,” Oliver says tersely.

She remembers a moment from their trip, when she saw a snake dart over the path, and spent the rest of the hike on Oliver’s back with her thighs braced around his waist, her arms around his neck and her head tilted forward beside his cheek. After a few minutes, she told him to let her down, but he wouldn’t; he locked his arms beneath her knees and pressed kisses into her elbows and cursed when she blew gently into his ear. And after carrying her for an hour (all that working out definitely works in her favor), with her breasts pressed against his shoulder blades and her fingers trailing down over his chest and her core shifting against the base of his spine, they found a patch of secluded grass and spread out the blanket in her bag and made love in the sunlight.

This is not like that. But it’s nice to remember.

“It spit on me first,” she remembers. When they both look down at the grimy black stain on her legs, panicked, her mind spits out some of those endless lists of facts stored somewhere in there. “Spitting venom is harmless unless it gets in your eyes or an open wound—which it didn’t!”

“But it’s venomous…” Oliver says, voice nearly tremulous, for him.

“Yes, but most spitting venoms are cytotoxic—it should produce localized symptoms only.” She’s not sure about the “only,” but she doesn’t clarify for him, as his arms tighten beneath her knees and shoulders.

“Should?” Diggle asks softly. Maybe they’re all imagining seizures and paralysis and death.

“I don’t know, it’s a _dinosaur_ that’s been brought back to life. Who knows anything? Maybe it’s harmless.” Her voice has gone small, as Oliver’s eyes flutter shut, but they reopen with a sense of purpose.

“We need to get to a doctor. _Now_.”

They all know better than to try to suck the venom out of the wound, but that means there’s nothing he can do for her now, and she can see the barely leashed madness in his eyes.

He takes off down the road, with Diggle walking between them and that side of the jungle, eyes darting around and gun held at his side. Felicity’s holding onto Oliver’s shoulders, trying her best not to wince at the pain throbbing through her leg, feeling the strained tilt of Oliver’s stride quickening over the dirt path.

“Oliver, your knee-”

“It’s nothing,” he says.

“It’s not nothing.” It helps to focus on something other than the tightening swell of the skin around the puncture marks, and the electric sparks of flame traveling from her knee to her toes, and the thought that she might need an amputation.

“I can carry her,” Digg offers.

Oliver doesn’t say anything, just shifts her slightly so she’s pulled in tighter against his chest, and she rests her chin on his shoulder to look back at Digg and roll her eyes.

“At least slow down,” she says. “Nothing is following us.”

“I’m not hurrying because of what’s behind us.”

“Why would they even have Dilophosaurs out here running around?” she asks, to distract herself. “I mean other than the fact that this is Hell Island. Sorry, Oliver, this might be the worst island on the planet—not to belittle your experiences or anything, I don’t want you to think-”

“Felicity, this is worse,” he says simply. She kisses the corner of his jaw, the muscle twitching beneath her lips, and his hands tighten around her. She turns her face into his neck so she can bite her lip against the pain that his grip brings on rather than make a sound, and then lifts it to keep on babbling. For once, it might actually be helping her.

“They’re fairly minor carnivores, with weak jaws and an obviously small frame—maybe they weren’t discovered and captured when they retook the island? God, this was so irresponsible, all of it… Stupid science, I hate it.”

Neither of the boys respond, both too lost in worry and fear and focus, and she pulls out Oliver’s phone, still miraculously in her pocket, to keep searching for a signal, a GPS, _anything_.

“I didn’t mean it, I was just mad,” she murmurs to the phone, staring at those little missing bars like she can summon them with her mind. “Please come back. I love science. I’m all science, all the time.”

She leans her forehead against Oliver’s collarbone, hoping he doesn’t notice the sheen of sweat along her hairline, the tears gathering in her eyes at the waves of cold fire dousing her right leg, the greater fear that it will start to go numb… forever.

Instead, she just looks at the phone, and thinks…

_Please help us._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it turns out that Steven Spielberg/Michael Crichton made up just about everything about the Dilophosaurus--they made it smaller, they added the frill, and they made up the spitting venom. Which just means I'm doing whatever I want here, because it's Jurassic Park, baby! :) 
> 
> Thanks for reading, and check back in Saturday for the update--because you can never get enough, right? ;) 
> 
> I'll see myself out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people just can't catch a break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the promised Saturday update!! Check in next Saturday (or, you know, sooner if my will power breaks) for more! Not too much longer now...

The freshwater pond spreads out from a waterfall spilling down from the rocks above, smaller than the pool in the manor’s backyard, definitely _not_ big enough for one of those monstrous underwater dinosaurs, Oliver tells himself.

Felicity has gone quiet in his arms, and that’s worse than anything she could possibly say—even when she gives him that guilty look that tells him he should find her awkward instead of adorable, though he never will. He tilts her slightly so her head tips back, and he sees that her eyes are open, at least. She offers him a tilted smile, but it’s the pain making her eyes glassy that has his heart stuttering in his chest.

“Time for a break?” he asks without really asking, stopping on the rocky ledge of the pond, Digg stepping up beside him. When he crouches down to lay Felicity on a large flat boulder, his knee screams in protest, and he has to admit he shouldn’t be carrying her any farther. He looks to Digg, who can see it in the stiffness as he rises, and he nods in understanding.

Everything in him wants to keep going, wants to get to the park, to a doctor, to walls and fences and guns, and then _off this goddamned island_ … but Felicity’s pale and her hair is slightly damp with sweat, and maybe cold water will help.

Because something has to help.

“Blood clotted fine, that’s good,” Digg is saying while kneeling over her outstretched leg. “And the redness and swelling hasn’t spread far beyond the wound—also good.” He holds her ankle in his hand, examining the wound, even as she winces and squirms. “Just stay calm for me, Felicity.”

“I am so calm right now—zen, really. I recommend dinosaur bites for everybody,” she says. Looking at her glasses slightly tilted on her face, and her feeble attempt at a smile, Oliver feels protectiveness growling like a wild animal trapped within his rib cage, demanding a satisfaction he can’t give it.

Diggle is scooping up water in his hand, dripping it over the wound to wash away the blood and black venom, careful not to touch the swollen skin. Felicity closes her eyes, her hands curling into fists at her sides as she rests on the rock. When Diggle moves to take off her shoes and socks, to free the beginnings of swelling there, she gasps and twists her head to the side.

“Can’t you give her something?” Oliver snarls at Digg.

“No. We don’t know how it will react with the venom.”

She whimpers, and Oliver forgets his knee and crouches beside her head, brushing back the loose wisps of hair from her forehead. “What can I do?” he murmurs, not sure if he’s asking Digg or Felicity.

“You could take off your shirt,” she says, eyes still squeezed shut, her voice low and muttering so perhaps she doesn’t know she’s speaking out loud. “That always makes me feel better.”

He’s almost tearing his shirt off as Digg snorts, before Felicity even opens her eyes. He would do _anything_ to help, to make her happy—sing showtunes and Disney songs, strip down naked in front of the world, swim with the Mosasaurus… If she could just be out of pain, a pain so much more acute and piercing than anything he’s ever felt in his own skin.

Her eyes blink and go wide when they open, skating around his chest in a pattern he’s come to recognize—Bratva tattoo, shoulder scar, then down the scratches over his heart and abs, past the mark of Ra’s’ sword, the Chinese tattoos, and then up to the other shoulder. She’s traced the same trail with her lips, hot sliding of tongue across roughened skin, better than any balm or herb could ever be.

“Oliver, I wasn’t—you can’t,” she says, at least not focusing on Digg who’s pressing a clean dressing from the first aid kit over the wound. “People will see-”

“I don’t care.” His hand spans her entire face, from chin to temple, and his thumb runs along her bottom lip. “I don’t care about anything but you right now.”

She smiles beneath his hand, before it crumples and falls when Digg finishes taping the dressing onto her skin, having to press into the swelling. Oliver curls his hand under the back of her head, lifting it to slide his wadded-up t-shirt underneath. It’s damp with sweat and probably smells, but she’s never minded (much) when he draws her in against him after a workout. Often, she latches onto _him_ , and takes the clothes stained with patches of his sweat to the laundry room without complaint.

Once she’s had some water to drink, and her leg is angled so it rests beneath the level of her heart, he and Digg step a few feet away.

“Can we move her?” he asks softly.

“I don’t see that we have much choice,” Digg says. “And it’s local, just like she said. It’s looking pretty good.”

“This is _good_?”

“This could’ve been a lot worse, Oliver.” He sighs. “Let’s leave it at that.”

Oliver is seized with a flash of gratitude that Diggle is even here, and he grasps his friend’s shoulder. “Thank you, John.”

“Just keep it together, man. For her.”

They return to her side, and Oliver can see the way she swallows her pain and forces a smile to her face. He wants to tell her not to hold back, to scream and cry if she needs to, but he doesn’t know how he’d handle that.

“You two look really good from this angle,” she says. “Not that you don’t look good from every angle, I mean. I just feel like you should be putting on a show for me. Like some kind of tropical _Magic Mike_ motif or something.”

“I still can’t believe you got me to that movie,” he mutters. Although it did inspire some very interesting role-playing once they got back to the rental house; the sort of thing he’s only comfortable doing with her, the only time he’s felt truly, sincerely playful since the island.

She points to her own chest. “Boobs.” Then she points to him. “Frat boy.” She grins, tight and slightly forced as it is, and the protective animal within rages against his rib cage with the pounding of his heart. 

He _will not lose her_. Even if he has to fight every dinosaur on this island bare-handed.

“Sorry, Felicity, no stripping—or walks around the block,” Digg adds, giving Oliver a side-eyed glare. “No elevated heartrate.”

As she opens her mouth to tease or protest, her gaze catches on the sky above them. And she frowns.

“What is that? Oh, God…”

Oliver twists to look up, seeing shapes moving rapidly across the sky, swooping wings and…

Not birds.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Oliver says breathlessly, because what else is there to say? He can see the leathery wings and sharp talons, the narrow jaws lined with teeth and parting in shrill cries, the hum of savage hunger in the air around them.

“Pterosaurs,” Felicity whispers, because maybe to her, it helps to know what’s coming.

Naming things can take away their power, some say; but he knows things can kill you with or without a name.

For a moment, they all freeze, hoping the flock of flying dinosaurs passes by, or by some impossible miracle on this hellish island, maybe they are herbivorous—but a couple are already diving out of the crowd, into the gaping hole in the canopy above the pond, piercing shrieks sounding along with the snap of their wings. Digg has his gun out and ready, held in steady hands, though he knows better than to start firing wildly into the air.

Oliver wants to dive on top of Felicity and cover her from head to toe, but he’ll be a powerless lump of flesh waiting to be savaged by talons and teeth, and her beneath him. She’s already rolled off the boulder that was serving her up like a buffet table, crawling through the dirt towards the deeper foliage.

But he doesn’t have time to make it to whatever little protection the forest might offer, only managing to snag a large stick before the creatures are on them in piercing screeches and powerful flapping wings. He hears Digg fire off one shot before the man falls, shouting out a curse as the gun slides away over the dirt. Oliver swings the branch, knocking the thing sideways, its long beak opening in a cry as it tumbles over the ground—but mostly unharmed.

Oliver follows after the creature, kicking it savagely, catching whatever part of it he can as he stabs the branch like a spear. Behind him, he can hear Digg scrambling in the dirt as though wrestling with the other, and has to steel himself against turning to help when he hears the deeper groan of pain from his friend. Oliver has managed to sprawl the still-squirming beast on its back, and he stomps on it without pity.

If there’s one thing he learned on the island, it’s kill or be killed.

A second gunshot roars through the air, and now he’s whipping around on his heel—

To see Felicity sitting several feet away, gun held in both hands, face tense with concentration as the winged dinosaur shrieks and falls off of where it clung to Digg’s shoulders. It twitches and shrivels on the dirt, as Digg thrusts it away and scoots back on his hands.

Now is _not_ the time to be aroused by Felicity firing a gun, he tells himself, and after a quick scan shows her to be untouched, he hurries to Digg.

“You okay?” he asks, as Digg sits up and feels for the puncture wounds along his shoulder blades.

“I’m fine,” he says brusquely. “Not too deep.”

“Oh my God, Digg, I’m so glad I didn’t hit you,” Felicity says, taking deep breaths, setting the gun down carefully on the ground.

“Me, too,” he replies with a wry grin. “Nice shot.”

Oliver checks the wounds and finds them shallow as he said; perhaps the thing encountered more muscle than it expected.

The flock seems to have passed overhead, and they can breathe again, for now. But even his tolerance for drawn-out disaster scenarios is wearing thin.

Then the siren of screams rises in the distance, from the direction of the park. Oliver feels that familiar desire to help, to take everyone he can find into the shelter of his strength, to make everything he’s gone through _mean_ something. He thinks of the family from Star City, as though the protection he’s pledged the city follows them across the world.

He’s got more than enough to worry about with the two people in front of him, though.

Because Felicity falls to the side, collapsing into the dirt, and his heart falls with her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity wakes but the nightmare isn't over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left after this one!! And I'll be posting that on Wednesday, four weeks from when this wild ride started. 
> 
> If we all survive until then... ;)

The world shakes around her, steady footsteps beneath her that jolt through her bones, and for a hazy moment, she waits for the steaming, rotten breath and the tearing of her flesh beneath the rows of dagger teeth. She wants her last thought to be of Oliver, imagining it’s his hands curled around her skin, his fingers digging into her thigh and shoulder instead of death.

Then Felicity realizes the moist ground beneath her cheek smells like him, and it’s rumbling not with apocalypse but with the low, soft voice she loves.

“Something’s going down,” the voice is saying.

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” another voice replies above her head, a short distance away. “We saw those helicopters coming in.”

Felicity picks up then on the sounds breaking through the world around them, faint in the cacophony of insects and animal cries, but distinctive enough to snag her attention.

“Fireworks,” she mumbles, finally opening her eyes. The world has plunged into darkness, and above her is a scattering of glitter in the sky, just beyond the face of the man she loves turning towards her. She can barely make out his expression in the dark, but she’d know the tension of that square jaw anywhere.

“Felicity?” His voice sounds wretched, agonized, and he stops the uneven, lurching gait beneath her.

The sounds in the distance die out, and she realizes they weren’t fireworks. They’re sounds that she unfortunately knows a lot better—explosions and gunfire.

She’s covered in Oliver’s t-shirt, cradled against his bare chest, and somehow she still feels a little chilly. Maybe it’s because her right leg feels like it’s made of dry ice from the knee down, a freezing flame that ripples under her skin with an agony so sharp her mind is starting to disassociate from that leg entirely. What did it ever do for her, anyway?

At this point, amputation would be a vacation…

And it would be a better one than this.

Warm fingers press into the skin of her throat, and she looks up to see Digg standing over her, making out his familiar shape in the shadows. He offers her a faint smile, visible as her eyes adjust to the moonlit night.

“Her pulse is better,” he tells Oliver. “How are you feeling, Felicity? Breathing okay?”

She takes a breath, as if more air could ease the pain in her leg, maybe fill it up until it pops. With no rattle in her lungs or difficulty getting air, she says, “Lungs good. Leg bad.” She wants it to come out nonchalant and breezy, but the whimper in her tone has Oliver’s hands tightening around her.

“Okay,” Digg says calmly, moving around her to examine her leg. “It hasn’t spread above your knee, though, right?”

“No.” She tries not to squirm as his fingers gently prod her swollen shin, tickling lightly across her bare foot. At least she can still feel all of it, though it’s a Pyrrhic victory.

“That’s good,” he says, and she knows he’s trying to sound casual and comforting, but she seriously considers kicking him with her other foot, still in its sneaker.

Then she remembers that he didn’t escape the Pterosaurs unscathed.

“Digg, are _you_ okay?” she asks. It helps to focus on someone else’s pain, and she recalls Oliver’s strained knee. “And Oliver, your knee…”

“Is _nothing_ , Felicity,” he says stubbornly. He kisses her forehead, lingering to breathe against her hair, deep exhalations of relief.

“I’m fine,” Digg answers. “Might have a few scars to compete with your boy here, but nothing major. I offered to carry you, but this stubborn idiot…”

“Didn’t want you to aggravate your wounds.” Oliver starts walking forward, clearly trying to disguise the limp, shifting her in his arms; even for him, they must be tired. “Lyla would maul me herself if I let you bleed out over a couple scratches.”

“Are we almost there?” She doesn’t know how long she was out, how long they’ve been walking through this hellscape.

“See those blinking lights in the distance?” Oliver asks, and she turns her head to squint through her tilted glasses at the tiny white stars winking out of the dark. “That’s gotta be the fence into the park.”

“A fence?” She nearly groans, imagining having to climb—or be thrown, more likely—over a fence. What she really wants is to find a horizontal surface and pass out, but she keeps her eyes open for Oliver.

“Let’s take this one step at a time,” Digg says. “Get there, get through, get home.”

But the next step Oliver takes reverberates through her body like standing too close to the speakers at a rave, and at the way both boys jerk to a stop, it’s not just her.

The forest goes silent around them, insects stilled and quiet, nothing but another roll of thunder across the ground, shaking the leaves above them.

“No more, no more,” she moans, as the quakes grow stronger, and she can just make out the heaving breaths of the giant beast. Oliver and Digg are moving into the trees, silent and focused, but where can they hide? The thing approaching is shoving through the forest behind them, getting closer.  

She reaches out a hand to curl around Oliver’s neck, grabbing his attention. “Just leave me,” she whispers. “You can make it if you run.”

“ _Absolutely not_ ,” he growls.

“Oliver…”

“Felicity, I just held you in my arms for an hour waiting for you to stop breathing,” he says, voice low and tormented. “I won’t live without you—I am not leaving you, and you _are not leaving me_.”

“Maybe if we just hide,” Digg hisses. There’s no knowing if this thing can see in the dark, but if they’re lucky, it’s heading somewhere else and will just pass them by.

But when have they ever been lucky?

Because then she hears the cutting whistle of something small and fast hurtling through the brush, making small croaking chirps—several somethings, she realizes. And with a wave of tears she can’t fight, she knows what they are.

“Velociraptors,” she says shakily. “You have to run.”

She thinks of squirming out of his grasp, tumbling to the ground, even biting him to make him let her go… But she knows he won’t. She’ll only waste seconds they don’t have in the struggle, and get them all killed.

If they aren’t already dead.

“Hold on, Felicity,” Oliver says tightly, as Digg starts to jog ahead—he won’t leave them, but the instinct to flee rides them all hard. With her arms wrapped firmly around his neck, he tosses her legs over his shoulder, and she follows his lead to slip onto his back, unable to fight the groan of pain as her leg strikes his hip.

But he doesn’t spare a moment to comfort her, already running forward as though his knee isn’t wearing to pieces beneath him, so she can do nothing more than the same.

Their sprint over the ground isn’t quiet, branches snapping underfoot and leaves shoved out of the way, but the footsteps behind them shudder and pulse in a race against their heartbeats. Felicity can just see her pale yellow backpack bouncing around Digg’s back ahead of them, a beacon in the dark.

And beyond, closing in and yet still too far, the fence.

Oliver’s breathing harshly beneath her, his hands like vices around her knees, merciless in their grasp despite the screaming pain in her right leg. The small part of her that considers letting him go, dropping away from his back, a speed bump in the raptors’ path, knows he would turn around and die with her.

She also knows, if they reach that fence, he’s going to throw her over and make her watch him and Digg die from the other side. Hot tears pour down her face to drip onto the t-shirt bundled between her and the bare, sweaty skin of his back, the muscles surging beneath her. She can taste blood in her mouth from the savage bite on her lip, trying to keep as quiet as possible and keep from gasping with every jolt and stab of pain.

They can see the buildings beyond the fence, the lights of the park’s Main Street—and the fence’s gate hanging open, torn from its hinges. Felicity is seized with relief and agony at once, for it won’t slow them down… but it won’t stop the monsters either.

A rapid clicking growl sounds from far too close behind her, rising with triumphant hunger, echoed by other creatures slithering through the jungle around them. And behind them all, the oncoming storm, footsteps striking the dirt path in a hammering rhythm.

Felicity waits for the slash of claws across her back, for the tingle of steaming breath, for the rip of teeth like rusted nails. She has the thought of kicking back her bad leg, letting it take that first, if Oliver’s grip on her knee weren’t stone and iron.

She loosens one hand from its grip around Oliver’s throat, easing it down to rest for a moment over his racing heart. All she wants, all she has ever wanted, is for it to keep beating.

Because it’s her heart, too.

Then, with the first wisps of the rasping breath skating across her back like a brand, Felicity grabs the loose bundle of t-shirt from between her and Oliver and hurls it back over her shoulder.

The raptor snarls and stumbles, crying out in frustration as its face is covered in sweaty dark fabric, or so she assumes when the breath falls away and its gliding footsteps stutter to a halt behind her. As if in answer, the others cry out, but they’re still some distance behind, and the fence is _there_.

Digg has darted to one side, already half-turning with his gun to take at least one of them out, but Felicity spots something over Oliver’s shoulder, down the alleyway behind the row of shops.

“The dumpster!” she cries out before Oliver’s steps can slow. “Get behind it!”

Oliver has blown past Digg, but snags his arm to drag him with, and the three of them are crashing onto the ground around the side of a large metal dumpster up against a brick wall. She has to cover her own mouth, biting into her hand, to keep from screaming when her leg bangs against the concrete ground, but then she’s half in Digg’s lap and half in Oliver’s. Their chests are heaving, their breaths panting, trying to restrain the sounds through their noses even as they struggle to get air. It doesn’t help that every breath drags the overpowering stench of garbage further around them.

Beneath her, their hearts pound so loudly she swears she can hear them, or maybe that’s just her own racing in triplicate.

The hasty footsteps transform into clacking talons over concrete, back by the fence, slowing as though searching for their missing prey. She can see nothing from their place huddled beside the dumpster, and she wraps herself in the pretending of childhood—if you can’t see it, it can’t see you.

Oliver tips her slowly into Digg’s arms, leaving himself unburdened, sitting up silently into a crouch. His hand lingers over her shoulder, one last point of searing contact. Maybe taking a last hit of strength before planning to dive out and lead them away.

She snags his hand with her own, nearly crushing his fingers into her grip, dragging his hand to fold between her tear-soaked cheek and shoulder, desperate to hold onto him. Forever.

How many times do they have to say goodbye like this?

But then the steps continue on past the alley, towards Main Street, their rattling calls quieting into the distance. Before any of them think to move, those heavy, methodical steps reach the fence, and the dumpster rattles slightly beside them.

Those footsteps, too, move on into the park, the strange dinosaur passing them by.

And they can all breathe again.

“I thought… the smell…” Felicity says, still whispering, as Oliver collapses back against the wall, still worn out from that endless sprint to the fence. “Maybe if they couldn’t smell us over the trash…”

“I knew we kept you around for a reason.” Digg’s head is resting back against the wall, his eyes closed, the backpack crunched between his back and the brick.

They’re nearly giddy with oxygen deprivation, and she feels a fatigue deep in her bones and coursing from the leg gone nearly numb with white-hot pain. Her torso falls back into Oliver’s lap where he catches her in the crook of his elbow, smiling down at her in sheer relief.

That’s when the raptor finds them.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for the end of Jurassic World. 
> 
> Because I'm following the movie, there was really only one way for this to end. I could say so many things about the issues I have with this ending (agency and pacing and... gah!), but you know what? Whether you like it or hate it, THANK YOU to every reader who spent even one moment of their lives on this story. I am so beyond grateful. :)

Oliver knows death… intimately. He has stared into its face more times than he can count.

But it’s never stared back at him quite like this.

The raptor’s narrow face and sharp eyes tilt as it looks at them, sitting frozen and silent on the ground. A blue stripe of scales shimmers down its spine, and its claws hang forward beneath its hovering frame, tale swiping through the air behind it. The jaw hanging slightly open in a macabre grin is lined with teeth like needles.

Felicity trembles beneath his hand, while he can hear Digg’s sweaty palm gripping tighter around his gun, though his arm stays lowered at his side lest any sudden motion prompt the beast to attack.

His mind races for a plan, any plan; if the thing lunges, he’s prepared to throw his arm out in front of Felicity to take the bite, then shove her aside and stand to kick the beast, maybe wrestle it to the pavement. At least die _trying_.

Maybe long enough for Felicity and Digg to get away.

Just as he’s gathering the strength, without and within, to make the first move, to push Felicity away and lunge forward, not even able to say goodbye—

The raptor’s head turns suddenly, towards noises in the distance, doors pushed open and footsteps— _human_ footsteps—scattering down stone steps.

And the raptor runs off towards them.

“Oh my God…” Felicity breathes.

Once the moment has passed, Oliver has time to feel a pang of concern for whatever humans summoned the raptor’s attention. Yet he can’t do much more than listen to the breaths of the two people with him and be grateful.

“I am so done with this bullshit,” Digg mutters.

“We need to get out of here,” Oliver says, before another dinosaur—because clearly every single one on this island is going to take its shot at killing them—appears out of the dark.

He helps Felicity onto her one working leg. Digg’s face is shiny with sweat, his light gray shirt stained with blood, visible in the lights behind the shops, and even though he’s gathering himself to take her, Oliver can see the strain behind his eyes.

“I can hop,” Felicity says, and even though her voice is weaker than he’d like, he doesn’t see that they have much choice.

He wraps his arm around her shoulders and under her arm, as she grips his waist, gasping lightly every time her bad leg brushes his while it hangs between them. Her tiny fingers dig into the muscles along the side of his torso, and he’s reminded of last night— _God, only last night?_ —where they stared out the window, intertwined, happy.

Digg has moved halfway down the alley, and he swings open a metal door beneath a flickering lamp. “Come on, guys,” he says quietly, hyper aware that dinosaurs have been leaping out at them every chance they get.

Oliver half-lifts Felicity with every step, and she makes a small high-pitched noise as she pushes off the tip of her right toes on each hop. He shifts his grasp lower onto her waist, flipping her arm so it rests over the top of his, like a swing through an elevator shaft so long ago. When he hadn’t know how it felt to truly hold her…

And now he can’t live without it.

They disappear into the back stockroom of a shop, the door closed firmly behind them, when they hear the roar out in the street beyond. It rattles the windows, quivers down their spines, belonging to that strange dinosaur that started this nightmare.

“We can stay back here,” Digg says, as the noises outside erupt into snarls and screeches and the shudder of heavy bodies twisting over the ground.

“I think we have to see what’s going on,” Oliver says, reluctantly. Staying in this building, finally back within four walls, feels like a haven. But it may only last as long as those dinosaurs are distracted, and maybe this will be their only chance to get away and _off_ this island. Before they’re left behind.

Sharp yelps cut off abruptly outside, and as they ease forward through the gift shop, past silent shelving lined with t-shirts and commemorative shot glasses and keychains, they see the bottom half of the monster standing in the street outside the glass.

A raptor lies limp in the street beside its foot.

The chaos of the moment before seems to have fallen to a waiting silence, as the monster stalks along the street. It passes slowly by a kiosk, and Oliver sees the movement of a human darting between the buildings, and he realizes they’re not the only ones having a bad day.

“Should we try to go?” Felicity asks in a whisper. “Maybe you guys could go and-”

“ _No._ ” They are not having this conversation again. He will only lose sight of her when he’s dead.

The monster is pouncing on the kiosk with a roar, digging its claws through the wood, and Oliver wonders who is inside. A bit of his nobler instincts rush through him, racing through scenarios where he might distract it, especially ones where he can do it _without_ bringing this death brought to life down upon himself. But Felicity’s breathing is too heavy for the minimal amount of movement they’ve made, and he worries if he lets her go she won’t get back up.

And before he can even think to do anything, a new storm approaches, footsteps shaking the ground as a roar sounds in the night—like an air horn inside a cyclone, rumbling through the dark.

A sound he’s heard before.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex bursts through the giant skeleton and onto the street, a woman scrambling across the pavement in front of it, holding a flare like a baton and hurling it at the unknown dinosaur. The flare does nothing but smack it ineffectually on the side, but the T. Rex has followed it like a homing beacon towards the monster, while the woman tumbles onto the street beneath its tail. 

The two ancient horrors face off in the middle of the street, roaring at each other and sending jagged spikes of primal fear through Oliver’s body. He should feel safe behind the glass and wooden beams of the building, humanity’s evolutionary mechanism to fend off the dark, but it feels like nothing more than paper and air between them and the titans of scales and flesh and bone out there.

As the two monsters begin to fight, ripping into each other’s necks with bloody fury, Oliver moves Felicity down through the aisles of the shop, trying to move away with Digg in tow. But it’s like moving away from a tornado, as the monsters stumble and writhe throughout the street, the woman still on the ground dragging herself away from their fight to the death. When they smash through the kiosk, he hears her scream out, “ _Run!_ ” A man and two boys, one frightfully young, scurry out beneath the interlocked heads of the dinosaurs crashing above them, crossing the street to join the woman behind some rocks.

Across the street from where Oliver and the others watch in horror within the increasingly tentative safety of the shop.

But the fight is slowing, the final blow approaching, as the strange dinosaur pins the T. Rex to the ground by its neck, jaws stretching open for the kill. Oliver isn’t sure what to feel, what to want, what to _do_ to get them out of this. They should be taking the chance to run while they can, perhaps back out into the alley, but he can only stare at these creatures, transfixed.

Waiting to see death itself take another victim.

Then a barking yap sounds over the rattling growl, and the raptor from before runs forward out of the wreckage, diving onto the monster and pulling it away from the T. Rex long enough for it to recover and return to the fight. With renewed ferocity, it pounces onto the monster’s neck, twisting it savagely in the grip of its teeth.

Oliver only has time to turn his back to the window and push Felicity towards the back of the store when the thrashing beasts smash into the façade of the shop they’re in, light fixtures sparking over their backs and timbers cracking and cascading to the ground. The windows shatter and blast into the shop with the force of their legs tripping over one another, knocking displays onto the thin carpet. Felicity falls to the ground with a strangled scream, either from her leg or the wrestling nightmare above them, while Digg crawls forward on his elbows to escape a fallen beam.

The dinosaurs fall away again, moving towards the other side of the street, then down to the end of the block where Oliver can hear another building collapse beneath their onslaught. 

Will they come back again? Is now the time to run?

He leans up from where he’s sprawled over Felicity, looking down into her wide, bewildered eyes, one lens of her glasses broken. For a moment, all he wants to do is stay right here, with the clouds of dust spiraling through the air around them in the settling rubble, with her warm body nestled beneath his bare chest.

But she’s still pale, her lips ashen with pain, and the chaos outside could come back at any moment.

The roars and growls and squeals pause, as Oliver lifts Felicity carefully into his arms again, because a new wave of adrenaline surges through his muscles. Digg stands up slowly beside him, shaking his head, looking over at him with the whites visible all around his eyes.

Through the ruined columns and demolished window at the front of the shop, they can see the three dinosaurs—monster, T. Rex, and raptor—gathered at the edge of the waterfront. A new wave of roaring begins, prelude to another bout…

When the Mosasaurus lunges out of the water, grabbing hold of the monster’s neck in its mouth, and drags it back into the sea with a victorious bellow.

For a moment, the T. Rex and raptor look at each other, growling softly, before the mangled T. Rex turns and walks away. The four humans have gathered in the doorway of the shop across the way, the man and the raptor fixed in a tense staring contest that belies an intelligence behind those inhuman, yellow eyes. Then the raptor turns and trots through the center of the street, stepping over debris, disappearing into the night.

“Is it over?” Felicity whispers against his neck, her voice thready and weak. He squeezes her tighter against him.

“Yes.” He doesn’t care if he might be lying. In that moment, he’ll give her anything that will help, and it isn’t the truth.

They’re still on this fucking island.

The people have moved slowly into the center of the street, covered in sweat and mud, clothing torn, possibly looking as ragged and rundown as Oliver and the others. But with the dinosaurs gone, for the moment, this is their chance.

He lifts Felicity out of the shop, seeing her reach out and grab something as they pass a teetering display, and the people startle at the sound of their footsteps crackling over shards of glass.

“Hey, Claire,” Felicity says wearily, barely lifting her head from his shoulder.

“Oh my God, Ms. Smoak!” the redheaded woman says, stepping forward from the man in a leather vest and the two boys. Oliver realizes he recognizes her, vaguely, from the banquet the night before. What now feels like a lifetime ago. “And… and Mr. Queen. I…”

“Maybe we can save this for whatever is going to get us out of here? Preferably something fast, and close by, and with medical supplies?” Felicity asks. She holds up the thing in her hand, and Oliver sees it’s a stuffed Triceratops. “Oh, and I’m taking this. For _free_.”

“Y-yes, of course,” Claire says, and her eyes widen as they move over Oliver’s bare shoulders and arms.

He doesn’t care.

Because anyone can see he holds his heart in his hands.

XXXXX

Felicity wakes slowly to the sounds of voices and running children and the humming of the ship’s engine, to the smells of ocean air and thousands of people confined in a space and the chemical scent of medical supplies in her corner of the ferry. The thin, scratchy sheets on the cot beneath her are twisted up around her legs, her bad leg laid out in the open. With the antivenom distributed, the swelling has receded, only a bit of redness and bruising around the bite itself.

And the pain is faint and fuzzy through the painkillers, like the light of dawn streaming in through the open bay doors—like her blurry vision, unaided by the broken glasses in her torn, blood-stained bag.

Oliver stands beside the cot, though turned away, finishing a phone call with… Thea, she guesses, from his soft comforting tone. Felicity wonders what the news has been saying about this place, and what to tell her mother.

On the next cot, she can just make out Digg sitting on the edge, the white bandages standing out against his dark skin. He too is on the phone, using his gentlest voice with presumably Sara, cradling the stuffed Triceratops on his knee.

Felicity reaches out a hand to snag the knee of Oliver’s pants, and he twists around rapidly to look at her, shoving the phone into his pocket.

“You should be on a cot, too,” she says, running her palm down the side of his leg. He’d been getting physical therapy for the knee, but last night might have undone all of it.

When he sits down beside her in the space next to her pillow, he leaves his leg stretched out straight, and that tells her all she needs to know. But the stubborn man won’t get medical help when anyone around him still needs it.

“Hey,” he murmurs softly, fingertips stroking down the side of her face as she leans against his hip. “How are you feeling?”

“Floaty,” she says, and she remembers they’re on a boat. “Oliver, are you okay here? On a boat, I mean?”

“I’m fine,” he says, leaning down to kiss the palm of her hand after lifting it within his own. When he bends forward, she can’t see the curling ridges of his abs beneath the oversized t-shirt they gave him, but she can imagine it. Like magic, it makes her feel much better.

“Are you sure?” She keeps hold of his hand, snaring it within both of her own.

“Felicity, we are all alive. After what we went through… I’m good.” He lets her hold the back of his hand against her heart. “I spoke to Thea, told her we’re fine. And your mother.”

“You called my _mother_?” Her hands convulse around his. “God, I love you.”

“I love you, too. Forever.” His voice drops on the last word, a solemn promise. It’s the closest they’ve ever come to a proposal, but he knows better than to mar that special memory with the trauma of this vacation.

Still, it will happen.

And that feels so warm and happy and _right_ that she’s not sure she’ll ever need a vacation again.

As long as this man is beside her.

She intertwines her fingers with his, holding them still against the beating heart in her chest, feeling the callouses slide roughly between her knuckles. In these hands, she will always be safe. Against murderers, and needles, and viruses…

Against any monster the world can throw at them.

Even dinosaurs.

And she will spend the rest of her life holding his heart safe within her own, repaying the favor.

“By the way, I’m initiating a hostile takeover of InGen when we get back,” she says nonchalantly, looking out at the rows of beds and huddled families. “And possibly the Masrani Corporation. And whoever else was involved in this mess. I _may_ have left a transmitter in one of their servers when we were on that tour—professional curiosity only, I swear! But whatever that thing was, I’m pretty sure someone created it and let it get loose, and they’re going down.”

Oliver looks down at her, one eyebrow quirked, but she can tell in the sharpness of his eyes when he gazes around the room, he’s thinking the same thing.

“And you know what else I could really use right now?” she asks, lifting his hand to press against her cheek, smiling up at him.

“What?” he says, in a tone that says he’ll give her the world if she wants it, as his fingers twitch to stroke his knuckles over her skin, his lips softly curled into a reflection of her happiness—that they survived, together.

She grins. “Another Mai Tai.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for joining me on this ride. :)
> 
> Now... RUN!


End file.
